They occasionally put on a flea market at the state fair grounds. Being on the hunt for Star Wars CCG cards I decided to check it out. I missed an importunity to pick up a bunch of cards at the last flea market I went to(the one back in Missouri where I got my initial Necrons for cheap) because I hadn't had the urge to get back in at the time. I was hopping to redeem myself this time.
The flea market was a little smaller than I had hopped, but I did find a vendor peddling random Star Wars and other vintage toys. I spotted a stack of all the Premier black border mains(Vader, Luke, Tarkin, 3P0, Lei, Obi, and Han) sealed in hard cases. When I asked how much, the vendor responded that he just picked them up and wasn't sure what they where worth. He also said he had a whole box of them in his car if I was interested(SCORE!) Unfortunately, except for 6 Theed Palace commons the box was a mix of Young Jedi and the WotC Tcg. Very disappointed. I offered $10 for the 7 mains and the 6 commons. They weren't power cards in the current meta, and I don't need them for decks. He countered with $15, and I accepted. Not quite the deal I was looking for, but still decent. I've seen Vader go for $10-15 by himself, and the others are all between $2-6.
Didn't see anything else while I was there, but it would be a good place to check out next time I'm looking for esoteric out-of-print stuff.
I have higher hopes for next weekend. I found out there's a monthly sports card show in Indy. I've heard on the SWCCGPC forums that you can usually get lucky at those and find a few sealed packs. I bought a lot of my packs at Baseball Card shops back in the day, so I know they used to carry that stuff.
I've checked a few local Comic Book Stores and the one sports card shop near me. They where all bust, so this is my last hope before having to go ebay and online sellers. I've already made a pair of orders to the player's committee online store for some singles that I had to have. I like the prices at CategoryOne games better, but they where out of a couple of the cards I really wanted(Daughter of Skywalker for one). I'd also like to score some of the money cards at less than full price too. I'd really like to have some Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knights, but I'd probably never pay the going $50 for them.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Friday, October 19, 2012
Riding the Star Wars High
Like I said before, the X-Wing miniatures game is pretty cool. Plus there's a player at work who's picked it up(typically miniature games haven't been popular with the other gamers I work with).
FYI, The Indy Knights are putting on a sort-of-tournament for X-Wing at the South side GP on Saturday.
X-Wing has got me craving all thing Star Wars(except the prequels. Never Again!). I read "Choices of One" and "Outboud Flight" by Timothy Zahn, and I'm re-reading Stackpole's X-Wing series. I also dusted off my old collection of Star Wars CCG cards. The good Star Wars CCG; the one printed by Decipher back in the late nineties.
The Star Wars CCG was what got me into gaming. I saw a commercial for it during afternoon cartoons back when I was in 7th or 8th grade. I bought it with birthday money, and tried to inflict it on some of my friends. I'd never played a game like it before, and most of the concepts where difficult for me to pick up at first. My friends never really got into it. They liked Star Wars as much as me, but they where strictly in to computer and console games at the time. I went to a small private grade school, so there wasn't a big pool of potential gamer nerds to draw from. I continued to collect and build decks over the next few years. I pretty much only played them against myself. I didn't really know about the whole FLGS scene, or where to look for tournaments. I found one other player at the larger, but still private, high school I attended.
In 99 I got my first job at a local Fazoli's. I met two guys there name Jared and Jason. They where only a year older than me, and they happened to play Star Wars too. After that I finally had some regular opponents to play. They also happened to play this cool miniature game called Warhammer 40,000 at the local game store every weekend. My bank account has never been the same since.
I really loved playing the Star Wars CCG back in the day. It was a very cool game, and it competed well with Magic. So much so that WotC decided to just to buy up the Star Wars license for themselves, leaving Decipher out in the cold.
Surprisingly though, the game is still alive. Decipher ceded the game to an independent player's committee. And they have kept the game going by running tournaments and releasing virtual expansions. The game is not as popular as it once was, but it's doing better than any other OOP CCG I can think of. Probably better than some in print ones too.
I'm working on building some updated decks. Hopefully I can find some new people to inflict the game onto.
FYI, The Indy Knights are putting on a sort-of-tournament for X-Wing at the South side GP on Saturday.
X-Wing has got me craving all thing Star Wars(except the prequels. Never Again!). I read "Choices of One" and "Outboud Flight" by Timothy Zahn, and I'm re-reading Stackpole's X-Wing series. I also dusted off my old collection of Star Wars CCG cards. The good Star Wars CCG; the one printed by Decipher back in the late nineties.
The Star Wars CCG was what got me into gaming. I saw a commercial for it during afternoon cartoons back when I was in 7th or 8th grade. I bought it with birthday money, and tried to inflict it on some of my friends. I'd never played a game like it before, and most of the concepts where difficult for me to pick up at first. My friends never really got into it. They liked Star Wars as much as me, but they where strictly in to computer and console games at the time. I went to a small private grade school, so there wasn't a big pool of potential gamer nerds to draw from. I continued to collect and build decks over the next few years. I pretty much only played them against myself. I didn't really know about the whole FLGS scene, or where to look for tournaments. I found one other player at the larger, but still private, high school I attended.
In 99 I got my first job at a local Fazoli's. I met two guys there name Jared and Jason. They where only a year older than me, and they happened to play Star Wars too. After that I finally had some regular opponents to play. They also happened to play this cool miniature game called Warhammer 40,000 at the local game store every weekend. My bank account has never been the same since.
I really loved playing the Star Wars CCG back in the day. It was a very cool game, and it competed well with Magic. So much so that WotC decided to just to buy up the Star Wars license for themselves, leaving Decipher out in the cold.
Surprisingly though, the game is still alive. Decipher ceded the game to an independent player's committee. And they have kept the game going by running tournaments and releasing virtual expansions. The game is not as popular as it once was, but it's doing better than any other OOP CCG I can think of. Probably better than some in print ones too.
I'm working on building some updated decks. Hopefully I can find some new people to inflict the game onto.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Hoorah! - New Dust units for early next year
I guess the first take away from this news is that the Axis for dust are getting jet fighters. Though what's really important is that the Allies get the USMC! It looks like just heavy weapons teams for now, hopefully they will add a few trooper squads as well. Can't wait to be able to field some Rangers, British Paras, FFL, and US marines all int the same army. Epic Win.
BTW, the Dust Warfare tournament last weekend run by Indy40K was really fun. We didn't have too many show up. Luckily, I think we hooked a few bystanders into the game. I kind of got distracted by 6th, Necrons, X-wing, and Kickstarter, but Dust Warfare is a pretty cool game and I hope we can build some more local interest in it.
BTW, the Dust Warfare tournament last weekend run by Indy40K was really fun. We didn't have too many show up. Luckily, I think we hooked a few bystanders into the game. I kind of got distracted by 6th, Necrons, X-wing, and Kickstarter, but Dust Warfare is a pretty cool game and I hope we can build some more local interest in it.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Stay On Target: X-wing Miniatures Review
Fantasy Flight released their new Start Wars star-fighter combat game a couple of weeks back. As someone who's been pretty disappointed with anything Star Wars for the last decade, it's nice when something of quality gets released with that name attached. I guess when you stamp Star Wars on enough products the law of averages would mean at least one of them would be good right?
I've always been drawn to the star-fighters and space battles in Star Wars over the woo-woo Jedi stuff. I like mystical laser sword wielding samurai as much as the next guy, but as far as I'm concerned the closer the story is to X-Wings, Wedge Antillies, and Han Solo the better. Well ,X-Wing Miniatures has all of those. Yes, yes and Luke and Vader if you're into that sort of thing. Personally I can't wait until I can get Baron Fel in his TIE\In. Is it late Q4 yet?
So the game is fighter scale very similar to games like Wings of War. From what I understand, it's a bit simpler. Each player has about 3-6 fighters on a 3'x3' board. Movement is simultaneously planed using maneuver dials, and movement is executed using templates. Each ship will get to move, perform a utility action, and make an attack during a turn. These actions are executed in order of pilot skill. Lower skilled pilots move first, and higher skilled pilots attack first.
Attack and defense rolls are made using custom d8's. The game is also heavy on the fiddly bits. Templates for moving, dials for maneuvers, damage cards, upgrade cards, ship cards, focus counters, evasion counters. They are all very high quality components(the game is published by Fantasy Flight), but I think they could have improved the game design so that so many weren't necessary. It may have helped cut down on the game cost a little.
The miniatures themselves are [9th Doctor Voice]FANTASTIC[/9th Doctor Voice]. Way better than the old micro-machines and the sculpts used in the WotC startship battles game from a few years ago. They went back to the old studio models from the original trilogy to get the proportions right. They are painted exceptionally well for pre-paints, and the materiel is a rigid plastic instead of the bendy stuff used for other pre-painted lines.
Cost is a little high. The starter comes with three ships(X-Wing and two TIEs) and the necessary aforementioned fiddly bits and costs $40. Each single ship blister cost another $15. The ships themselves do come with extra counters and upgrade cards beyond the base set. And each ship also has multiple stat cards so you can field an X-Wing with a generic pilot or a named pilot like Luke, Biggs, or Wedge. You'll have to buy at least 2 ships for each side to get the standard 100 point wings.
Currently there are only 4 ships in the game: X-Wing, Y-Wing, TIE, and TIE\Adv. Each with 5-6 pilot options. A second wave is on deck for later this year. It will include the A-Wing, TIE/In, Slave I, and Millenium Falcon. Whats cool about Slave I and the Falcon is that they are in scale with the fighters. This means the Falcon will be slightly larger than an iPhone.
It's a fun game that uses its license very well. You won't be able to play a game without quoting lines from the Death Star attack a least a dozen times. I have you now!
I've always been drawn to the star-fighters and space battles in Star Wars over the woo-woo Jedi stuff. I like mystical laser sword wielding samurai as much as the next guy, but as far as I'm concerned the closer the story is to X-Wings, Wedge Antillies, and Han Solo the better. Well ,X-Wing Miniatures has all of those. Yes, yes and Luke and Vader if you're into that sort of thing. Personally I can't wait until I can get Baron Fel in his TIE\In. Is it late Q4 yet?
So the game is fighter scale very similar to games like Wings of War. From what I understand, it's a bit simpler. Each player has about 3-6 fighters on a 3'x3' board. Movement is simultaneously planed using maneuver dials, and movement is executed using templates. Each ship will get to move, perform a utility action, and make an attack during a turn. These actions are executed in order of pilot skill. Lower skilled pilots move first, and higher skilled pilots attack first.
Attack and defense rolls are made using custom d8's. The game is also heavy on the fiddly bits. Templates for moving, dials for maneuvers, damage cards, upgrade cards, ship cards, focus counters, evasion counters. They are all very high quality components(the game is published by Fantasy Flight), but I think they could have improved the game design so that so many weren't necessary. It may have helped cut down on the game cost a little.
The miniatures themselves are [9th Doctor Voice]FANTASTIC[/9th Doctor Voice]. Way better than the old micro-machines and the sculpts used in the WotC startship battles game from a few years ago. They went back to the old studio models from the original trilogy to get the proportions right. They are painted exceptionally well for pre-paints, and the materiel is a rigid plastic instead of the bendy stuff used for other pre-painted lines.
Cost is a little high. The starter comes with three ships(X-Wing and two TIEs) and the necessary aforementioned fiddly bits and costs $40. Each single ship blister cost another $15. The ships themselves do come with extra counters and upgrade cards beyond the base set. And each ship also has multiple stat cards so you can field an X-Wing with a generic pilot or a named pilot like Luke, Biggs, or Wedge. You'll have to buy at least 2 ships for each side to get the standard 100 point wings.
Currently there are only 4 ships in the game: X-Wing, Y-Wing, TIE, and TIE\Adv. Each with 5-6 pilot options. A second wave is on deck for later this year. It will include the A-Wing, TIE/In, Slave I, and Millenium Falcon. Whats cool about Slave I and the Falcon is that they are in scale with the fighters. This means the Falcon will be slightly larger than an iPhone.
It's a fun game that uses its license very well. You won't be able to play a game without quoting lines from the Death Star attack a least a dozen times. I have you now!
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
So, if I played my Ultramarine Honor Guard counts as Grey Knights as an Allied Detachment for my Necrosn, would the universe explode?
I'm really like playing games with my new Necrons. I've been doing fairly well with them, and I don't feel like I'm being punished as much for my codex choice.
My list has generally been something like this:
2x Scythe Overlords in Command Barges
2x 5 man warrior units with cryptek in Ghost Arks
2x 5 man warrior units with cryptek in Night Scythes
1x 15 man warrior unit with res-orb Lord
2x 4 base scarab units
2x Annihilation Barges
1x Doom Scythe
I would like to work some Wraiths into the list, but I'm holding back on spending any more gaming money for a while(Went kind of deep into the Relic Knights Kickstarter). Until then I'd like to add a little more kick to the list. I want access to offensive psychic powers too. Grey Knights are the obvious choice, but my grey knights are modeled as Ultramarines Honor Guard. That ought to give the occasional fluff bunny a fit.
I wish the state of the game was not such that you need to ally GK or SW or Guard to be competitive. But we seem to be transitioning towards Death Star 40K. So you need to able to field your own Death Star, or be able to deal with one; preferably both. You can't always do that with one codex, and if you are going to ally, you need to ally the best.
Hopefully the current Death Star trend will implode on itself. I'm hoping that it's partially due to Nova not quite getting the competitive format right for 6th. Nova table quarters doubled down on punishing vehicles for being non-denial. The competitive format needs to either make more use of making heavies and fast attack scoring(maybe even elites too), or allowing vehicles to act as denial in your own deployment zone.
My list has generally been something like this:
2x Scythe Overlords in Command Barges
2x 5 man warrior units with cryptek in Ghost Arks
2x 5 man warrior units with cryptek in Night Scythes
1x 15 man warrior unit with res-orb Lord
2x 4 base scarab units
2x Annihilation Barges
1x Doom Scythe
I would like to work some Wraiths into the list, but I'm holding back on spending any more gaming money for a while(Went kind of deep into the Relic Knights Kickstarter). Until then I'd like to add a little more kick to the list. I want access to offensive psychic powers too. Grey Knights are the obvious choice, but my grey knights are modeled as Ultramarines Honor Guard. That ought to give the occasional fluff bunny a fit.
I wish the state of the game was not such that you need to ally GK or SW or Guard to be competitive. But we seem to be transitioning towards Death Star 40K. So you need to able to field your own Death Star, or be able to deal with one; preferably both. You can't always do that with one codex, and if you are going to ally, you need to ally the best.
Hopefully the current Death Star trend will implode on itself. I'm hoping that it's partially due to Nova not quite getting the competitive format right for 6th. Nova table quarters doubled down on punishing vehicles for being non-denial. The competitive format needs to either make more use of making heavies and fast attack scoring(maybe even elites too), or allowing vehicles to act as denial in your own deployment zone.
Monday, September 17, 2012
I'm usually the first to defend GW, but REALLY?
Seriously, Really? 11.99 for the psychic power deck on my IPhone? Well I guess it is $1.26 cheaper than the real deck. Do they know what the price point is on IPhone apps these days? That $1.26 is a lot closer to it.
I could tolerate the the full price for the digital codexs. They did update them for 6th, so they are an added value if you didn't already own one. I bought the Necron on, and all the hyper-linking to special rules is very nice.
At least their app is functional. Did Privateer ever fix their unusable train-wreck of an army builder that isn't an army builder app?
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Dust Warfare Tournament OCT-6-2012
What: 200 AP Dust Warfare tournament
When: Saturday, 6th October, 2012
sign-in starts at 9:30, round 1 starts at 10:30
Where: 1551 East Stop 12 Road, Suite F (two doors down from The Game Preserve)
Indianapolis, IN 46227
About 1/2 mile north of the Greenwood Park Mall on US 31
Cost: $10
The Indy 40K guys are putting it on. More info here.
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